


Des belles fleurs

by sala_dos_espelhos



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7139573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sala_dos_espelhos/pseuds/sala_dos_espelhos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Art + drabble fill] A canon era AU where Éponine survives the barricade and meets Cosette once again. Both girls learn to deal with their pasts, somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Des belles fleurs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonotadream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonotadream/gifts).



> A canon-era AU in which Cosette, in her most forgiving kindness wouldn't mind taking a broken Éponine back, and both girls would discover they had more in common than they thought.
> 
> This is meant to be a sweet small piece, but I hope you will still enjoy it sonatadream<3 It was wonderful to draw these two and to write these snippets. I hope they're not too angsty and still enjoyable. Their relationship is very complex so I tried to portray it as well as I could. Thank you for reading!

_An AU where Éponine survives the barricade._

_An AU without Marius, perhaps._

_An AU where both girls meet after a long time apart and reconnect._

 

 

It feels so long, so long ago. Éponine's frayed gloved dig into Cosette's silk shawl. She hushes her calmly, she pats her hair.

Éponine knows this story, having grown under the influence of machiavellic schemes of her parents but also the long ago medieval tales of her mother. She knows of the poor and the rich whose tables turned, she sees it in both of them now, the poor girl, the rich girl.

"What a miracle to have found you now that I lost everything else." Éponine sneezes, her brown shawl covering her blotchy red face. Behind her lids wet with tears, images of death, famine, poverty; red.

"What a miracle for me to have found you now that I have so much to give." Cosette traces the poor girl's face and she weeps even more.

 

But Cosette accepts her. They stroll aprés-midi at the local parks, Éponine recently got a job at a flower shop. Up in the high hours of the morning (the old hours of crime), she know searches the hills for bouquets of daisies and poppies, bluebells, tullips, comes back to the shop and waters the plants; working for Monsieur is no gold job, but it is an honest job, one in which Éponine is free to parade around the streets with bouquets colorful of flowers, the stench of the city forgotten as she passes.

She still dreams of richesses, dreams bathed in gold and that nice silk Cosette wears, a soft beige for spring and a dark midnight blue for winter. She wakes up a bit confused with all this, but soon dresses herself, ties her apron with new found pride and gets to work.

***

Cosette meets her on her errands. She smiles again, she says "I prayed a lot for you", Éponine laughs. She long stopped believing in god. But Cosette in all her rosy cheeked happyness may seem as much of a saint if only Éponine did not know ofher trials. Cosette is not dumb at all, her sweet like eyes like that of a child barely contain any traces of the pain she endured long ago, the penance she paid under Éponine's parents. And Éponine and Azelma little did to stop it. Little? No, they did nothing at all. What one feels as child play can grow so tiring and upsetting to admit. It had been Éponine's fault too.

"We were children." smiles Cosette painfully, looking away.

Éponine's chest feels a bit tighter.

"No child should let another one bear the acts of a monster."

And with this Éponine holds her arm tightly, the sky a watercolor or reds and oranges and they can't be late for supper.

Weeks go by, then months and then seasons. Cosette has turned into a wonderful, peaceful woman and Éponine is far from being able to forgive and forget herself. Somedays are hard, but they used to be harder she thinks. Sometimes this is all you've got, sometimes this is just what you need.

"Do you forgive me?", Éponine asks, nervousness cracking her voice.

Cosette sighs to herself, her hands in her lap. She, too, has thought this over.

"I think... we were children."

"Do you think that excuses me?"

"No. But you have grown, and you have suffered plenty and so have I."

She has, they both have. 

"Sometimes it's all I remember, that I don't deserve this-- you."

"Sometimes..."

"You were good, and I was..."

But Cosette interrupts her.

"Why shouldn't try to find solace in each other?"

Cosette wears flowers in her hair, braided into her locks and milky white as the moon, flowers, from Éponine.

 

Peach blushes her cheeks and Éponine comprehends, Éponine understands, and lets herself go.

Sometimes, that's enough.


End file.
